The Hunger(27)

And though California seemed so far away from the American cities Doris had heard of—Boston, New York, and Philadelphia—it also seemed impossibly exotic. Doris was not afraid of a journey. She was only nineteen. Her whole life lay ahead of her.

“Ja,” she answered, taking Jacob’s hand in hers. Slowly, she placed it beneath the hem of her nightgown, so that his fingers trailed lightly against her knee. She felt herself flush at the boldness of it.

Though she had been timid when they’d first wed, she had by now come to enjoy her husband’s affection. It made her feel as though the matchmakers back home had been right all along, that they’d known far more about love than she did. Shivers tickled up and down her legs and torso as he touched her. Her stomach fluttered with anticipation. She had given herself up to the unknown, had trusted in the future, had allowed the ocean waves to carry her west, and into this man’s life. And that trust had been rewarded.

But that night, after he had lost his hands in the tangle of her hair and gasped quietly in her ear, neither of them could sleep.

He rolled toward her. “Du solltest dies über mich wissen.” You should know this about me.

Doris stiffened at the words. She disliked moments like this one, when she was reminded suddenly of how little she really knew about him. But especially now, when they were just on the brink of heading off into the wilderness together.

He had already used their savings to commission a wagon complete with a big canvas canopy, two pair of oxen, two sets of complicated harnesses. He’d already given the general store a list of the provisions they would need. The money had been spent. There’d be no going back.

But Jacob insisted that he could not bring her along with him until he had confessed all his sins. He sat up, pulled out a bottle of local-brewed obstwasser from a drawer by the bed, and began to tell her the story of Reiner, the confession tumbling out of him haltingly.

“Reiner?” She had never even heard him mention the name before.

It had happened six years earlier, almost to the day, Jacob said. He met a fellow German immigrant passing through town. The man, called Reiner, had come to Springfield to visit his nephew, whom he had not seen in a long time. Reiner knew how to make folk remedies from the old country, he’d told Jacob. He was a bit of a snake oil peddler, Jacob supposed, but he’d seen an opportunity. All Reiner needed were the ingredients . . . If Jacob helped him, Reiner promised to give him a generous cut of the profits.

It was easy, Jacob explained to her now, since his employer had trusted him with keys to all his establishments, including the apothecary.

“You stole from him,” Doris said. The truth sank in her gut. This was her husband’s sin—and perhaps an explanation for his unexpected wealth.

“We took very little,” he assured her. “A few packets of powders and a few dozen glass bottles. Nothing that would even be missed.”

“So what was the sin, then?” Doris asked.

Jacob paused and would not meet her eye. “Reiner sold the tonics to people in Springfield,” he explained, “and then he disappeared. Some say he went prospecting out west. But the people who took the tonic started to get sick. One of them died. A young woman.”

“Well,” Doris said with a tremulous voice, “the woman had been sick to begin with, right? Maybe the illness was responsible for her death, and not the medicine.”

Perhaps, Jacob agreed. Perhaps. “The woman who died . . . Her family was furious. They tried to find the peddler who’d sold her the fatal tonic, but with no luck. No one knew of my involvement, of course.”

“And no one ever shall,” she said, taking his hand again and squeezing it.

“Except,” he said quietly. “Except that I believe—I believe there may be a connection between the woman who died and one of the families traveling west with us. I live in fear of being discovered on our journey.”

“A connection?”

“George Donner may not have known the woman who died, but I am fairly certain his wife, Tamsen, did.”

Doris considered the man next to her. She was disappointed, suddenly and cruelly. And the fact that they would be traveling with a family he had wronged—that seemed a bad omen, a very bad omen.

“Don’t worry, Jacob,” she said, though it was as much to ease herself as him. “Try to put it out of your head.” But Doris herself could not do so. She had always been taught that the punishments for one’s sins worked in mysterious ways. That sometimes even small misdeeds could have great, unforeseen consequences. A lie—and a person’s life—hung over her husband’s head like a dark, spreading shadow. It was a very bad omen indeed.

But complete faith had rewarded her so far in her short life. So she lay awake that night, looked at the stars through their little apartment window for one last time, and resolved to have faith still.

After all, what other choice was there?





AUGUST 1846





CHAPTER ELEVEN





Biscuits. He was sure to want biscuits. Everybody liked biscuits.

Elitha Donner paused, her hand poised above the cold Dutch oven. How many could she take before someone would notice the missing leftovers? Two, three? Father was always blaming missing food on the hired hands—nothing but stomachs on two legs, he called them—so there was probably no need to worry. She settled on two and placed them in the center of her calico square. Next to them she put a hard-boiled egg from breakfast and ham trimmings. The ham was a bit moldy but still edible if you were hungry enough, and poor Thomas was surely hungry.